11th August 2000
Arriving at the scene of the stalemate the situation had changed. Tjololo had just retrieved the carcass from the hyaena, not sure how, and was in the tree feeding with hyaena staring up at him, tongue hanging out.
That was Tjololo for the night. We left to find other activity. While having a coffee and sandwich break we heard rhinos fighting in the distance and eventually found them in the river having just split up. The rhino still in the river had taken a serious bashing, bleeding and badly scarred.
Getting back to Tjololo around midnight he’d moved a way off from the carcass calling repeatedly for about half an hour before returning to his kill. Not sure what the calling was about, possibly responding to a female or keeping a rival off his boundary.
Although Tjololo is a lot better he still finds it sore to groom himself and only does so to remove an itch.
Back at the wild dog den the 8 pups where out lying huddled up in a tight ball catching the first rays. This bundle of pups was continuously on the move as they competed with each other to be in the centre. The warmest spot.
I was woken before dawn by the sound of hippo’s fighting. Rushing down to the dam they were still at it but unfortunately on the other side of the dam where there is no access.
While I filmed the mist on the water for about 15minutes the fighting went on. Then I heard a hippo in the water giving a long grunt. Was this the victor?
I moved on in search of the elephants. Mandlovu and her herd were still in the area around Bandama and again spent the day here visiting the pan a couple of times mainly to cool off. But the herd were disrupted today. Aunt was still with a couple of bulls and every now and then joined Mandlovu to suckle her calf.
Then one of the bulls was chasing her as she ran in a wide circle. This disrupted the rest of the herd and on a number of occasions they were off running as if thinking there was danger in the area.
And the problem was if I followed after them at the same pace they were running, they got scared and thought I was chasing them. Eventually I had to back off and find them again once the chasing was over.
Some zebra, a few impala and this herd of Sable Antelope also came to drink at the pan.
Late afternoon on my way home I took a stroll along the Malilangwe dam. The hippo took fright before I got near them and ducked into the water. A couple of huge crocs lay on the bank and also disappeared when they saw me. Except for one. It was dead from natural causes and had obviously been dead some time because when I tried to move it the scales came away in my hand.
And to say good night to me was this majestic Nyala bull close to camp.
10th August 2000
It was great to have Tjololo feeling more himself and being a lot more active through the night making hunting attempts on kudu, duiker, steenbok, impala and waterbuck. He managed to tackle an adult kudu cow as they both went crashing to the ground in some bush and were both up and running again. Tjololo gave chase for some 50m and gave up. Later in the evening he made a similar attempt on a kudu.
In the early hours he went in on some impala and we thought he’d missed but eventually found him strangling a male impala. While plucking it on the ground a hyaena surprised him, he dashed for a tree with the carcass but didn’t make it and for a few brief seconds Tjololo, hyaena and impala were in a tangle. The hyaena won the day. It fed but not over anxiously and then dragged the carcass into a thicket. Tjololo tried to pull a pose on the hyaena charging at it standing tall, but the hyaena retaliated and came out excited and giggling. Tjololo backed off. We left them in this stalemate situation with hyaena sleeping on the carcass in the thicket.
Again last night Tjololo continued to move north and further east into his old territory (Masuli’s territory?) and was confident marking all the way. This is very encouraging.
On our way back to camp we had our 4th puncture of the night between us, leaving us stranded a while until Dale was able to return from camp with another spare tyre.
10th August 2007 - Just had a report from Kirkmans Kamp that they followed Tjololo hunting for an hour last night in the southern end of his territory. The dude is apparently very well.
I would so love to see the lad again. He’s getting on now.
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